lionheart, let me hear you roar
by with the monsters
Summary: -and he shouldn't be jealous, really, because she's sixteen and she loves the dragons and there are so many things that wouldn't work.- TeddyLily


lionheart, let me hear you roar_  
sometimes people run away just to see if anyone cares enough to follow.  
_

**A/N: **I've been neglecting these two recently, haven't I?

* * *

She's just come back. Everyone's screaming and yelling at her but hugging her at the same time because no matter what they pretend they were _terrified _for her.

She looks like she's making a very big effort to appear sorry and contrite but she's not, _not at all_. After all, he's known her since she was born and she's wearing that glow that he hasn't seen in a long, long time. That glow that he used to define her by but has slipped away in recent years for reasons he cannot fathom.

Of course, if he was more of a man he'd be at the centre of that mêlée, squishing her and ruffling her hair and yelling at her and kissing her – no, he mustn't do that. That's why he's over here, where he's safe from the feelings she stirs up like a hurricane in his chest, because he doesn't think he's man enough to contain them.

Her grandma Weasley envelopes her in a huge embrace and she rolls her eyes at him over her shoulder, sending him a pleading look, her small hands still determinedly clutched around the handles of her singed-looking suitcases.

His hair flashes yellow with indecision and then he moves across the room. Her voice rises like the clear, pure cry of a hawk above the general uproar and the crowd parts somewhat to let him through. She abandons her suitcases finally and throws herself into his arms, her face buried in his shoulder and her arms around her neck. And like the sucker he is he lifts her off the ground and spins her round and round, revelling in her giggles as he sets her back carefully on her feet and she staggers slightly with dizziness.

"Missed you, Ted," she says in a somewhat slurred fashion, and he laughs and tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear and then picks up her suitcases for her.

"I missed you too. Where did you go? We've been looking for you since the end of last term."

She turns round to find all her family staring at the two of them, so she sticks her tongue out and propels Teddy up the stairs as he balances her suitcases with a worried expression.

"Don't drop them!" she cries as he stumbles sideways, and saves a small box from the top of the pile Teddy's carrying. He stares at it in confusion as it trembles, and then a little cry comes from inside.

"Oh God, Lils, what have you got there?"

She pushes him inside her bedroom and shuts the door, smiling with satisfaction as the wards she made him put up for her when she was ten slide into place tenderly, as though they've missed her. He piles her suitcases up in the corner and when he turns to face her she's sitting on her bed with the box in her lap.

"Come on, let's get it over with," he says, because her tanned face is scrunched up with worry (although her eyes are sparkling with mischief, just like usual) and she pops open the lid of the box and pulls a lizard from inside.

Teddy stares at it for a moment or two in confusion, trying to work out what it is, and then it yawns and extends two wings and … _oh god_.

"Lily," he says in an admirably calm voice. "Why do you have a dragon in a box?"

She lifts it up and it curls in her lap contentedly, humming slightly, and she grins up at Teddy innocently.

"His mother didn't want him. He's a genetic anomaly, so Charlie … um … Charlie said I could bring him home and train him because he doesn't have space to look after a runt."

Teddy seats himself gingerly next to Lily and shifts away when the dragon pokes an inquisitive muzzle at his leg.

"Anomaly in what way?" he inquires, hoping his voice is level and not squeaky with nervousness.

"He can't breathe fire," Lily says sadly, her fingers caressing the spines on the dragon's back gently. Teddy watches the patterns her hands draw and then shakes his head to snap him back to the present.

"So Charlie let you bring a dragon home? Just like that?" His voice is utterly disbelieving. "I assume you've been with him all summer?"

She nods, head hanging, but she can't keep up the pretence of apology because the dragon clamps some of her hair into his baby teeth and pulls, and she laughs, the sound all velvet, and falls backwards. The dragon crawls up her body and curls up on her chest.

Teddy leans back on one arm to loom over her.

"Lily, you're only sixteen. Your parents were worried sick about you."

She shrugs and sits back up, putting the dragon gently down on the floor and turning to Teddy, snuggling into his embrace like the child she used to be. As she clambers into his lap, all long legs and awkwardness, he sighs and wraps his arms around her.

"I'm old enough to take care of myself," she promises, tucking her head under his chin and sighing with contentment. "They didn't have to be worried."

"Are you kidding?" he replies in astonishment, startling the dragon, who had his head buried in a pile of Lily's old soft toys. "You disappeared straight off the train and we couldn't find you. We spent two days searching the station in case you'd gotten lost, and then your dad had all the aurors searching for you _everywhere._"

"I sent letters saying I was safe," she counters defensively, refusing to meet his gaze. "I needed to be away. The old saying, you know? 'Quit your job, buy a ticket, get a tan, fall in love, never return?' 'Cept I screwed up on the whole 'never return' part."

His heart pounds faster and faster and he can't hold in the question.

"You fell in love?" he asks in a strangled sort of tone, and she leans her head back to regard him. She sighs in frustration for reasons he cannot fathom, and then nods. His face falls as she stares dreamily out of the window, and he feels pathetic because something inside his chest is thumping painfully out of time and out of luck.

"I fell in love with Romania and with the dragons and the thrill of chasing them," she announces, twining her fingers easily with his. "It's the most amazing place in the world, Ted. I love it so much there. No-one looks at me funny for being a Slytherin or for being Harry Potter's daughter. I'm just Lily. And I like it. I like it a lot."

He tightens his hold around her and buries his face in her flame-red hair and for a reason he cannot comprehend he's gulping back tears.

"Never, _never _leave me like that again," he orders, and she smiles and slides her hands around his shoulders, pressing herself close to him.

"I was happy there, Teddy. I have to go back."

"But you're happy _here_," he protests furiously. "You're always smiling!"

"Just because I smile doesn't mean I'm happy," she explains carefully, her hand running gently through his now-blue hair. "And I don't smile an awful lot in Romania because I'm concentrating or a dragon is being difficult or Charlie's men are being idiots but that doesn't mean I'm not _happy_. It's all relative."

He jumps as the dragon suddenly flaps its clumsy way up onto the bed and clambers into Lily's lap. She strokes the top of its head gently, and Teddy tentatively lets his fingers trace down its tail. It moans in bliss and keels over sideways onto the bed, panting with happiness.

"He's just like a big puppy!" Teddy says in wonder, tickling his ribs, and Lily laughs.

"He's so adorable. I call him Titus."

"Titus," Teddy repeats, and the dragon cranes its head round to see why they're saying his name. "What are you going to tell your parents?"

"Well," she says slowly, with the air of someone making it up as she goes along, "I thought I'd hide him in here until school, and then take him to Hogwarts and keep him in that old paddock where Hagrid keeps the hippogriffs, you know?"

"And how are you going to feed him?" he asks, hating to be the one bursting her bubble, and she laughs.

"He doesn't need feeding. You should see him catch mice."

"Are you sure he'll be safe in the forest, though?"

She grins. "Sure. I'll enlist Lysander to help me keep an eye on him."

Teddy cannot control the hot wave of jealousy that floods through him at the mention of Lysander.

"Lysander Scamander?" he asks, just to confirm, and she tips her head back to rest on his shoulder and regards him slowly.

"No, the other Lysander I know."

Her eyes are sparkling again and he recognises the sarcasm so he makes a face at her and then starts tickling her furiously. She squeals and wriggles out of his lap, onto the floor, but he's bigger and stronger and he slides down next to her and pins her down, straddling her as his fingers dance up and down her sides and she screams and pleads with laughter and Titus the dragon starts butting Teddy in the side to stop him. Teddy fights the little dragon off with one hand and carries on torture-tickling Lily with the other.

The door suddenly bursts open as James, Al and Harry burst in, and Teddy looks up with practised innocence that is wasted because Lily is still writhing beneath him, tears of laughter running down her cheeks as she pushes at his chest to try to fend him off.

"Morning," Teddy says casually, subtly pushing Titus behind him and under the bed, and then turns back down to Lily and starts tickling her again.

"Mercy, Ted!" she shrieks desperately, her hands clawing at the air, and flings her head to the side to squint at her father and brothers, her face red with laughter and her hair spread around her in a fiery halo. "Save me!" she shouts, and Teddy chuckles and his heart squeezes as her eyes crinkle up in that way he just adores and she heaves and writhes and furiously tries to escape.

In the doorway, Harry smiles indulgently and turns to leave, James right behind him, but Al stays with his arms crossed, leaning on the doorway, and watches as Teddy continues tickling his sister.

"Al … you _traitor_," she gasps out, her whole body limp with laughter, and Teddy finally relents and rolls off her with a laugh of his own, one of his shoulders catching the side of the bed. He groans and clutches it as Lily looms over him, her eyes still shining with amusement, and tries her best to glare.

"You two are just _precious,_" Al says with a chuckle "really. Like Lady and the Tramp, but with creepier subtext."

They turn identical dagger-shooting looks on him, and with a laugh he retreats and shuts the door behind himself.

"What does he mean, I'm a tramp? He thinks I'm a hobo?" Teddy asks in confusion, flopping back to lie on the floor as Titus pokes his head out from under the blanket hanging over the edge of Lily's bed and crawls over Teddy's chest to get to Lily.

"It's an old muggle film," Lily explains, snuggling up to him with her head on his shoulder and Titus pressed between them, his head resting on Teddy's chest. "You'll have to watch it with me so you understand it. Only not tonight, because Grandma Weasley has decided to throw me a surprise welcome home party."

Teddy looks down at her, his brow wrinkled. "If it's surprise, how come you know about it?"

"James told me as soon as I got home," she admits, smothering a laugh with her hand, and pats Titus absently on the back as she tilts her head up at Teddy. "You better be coming."

He frowns unhappily. "I promised Vic I'd go out with her tonight," he says regretfully, and watches with self-loathing as her face falls and she turns away, focusing on Titus with a furious sort of concentration, and he quickly runs his fingers along her cheek and brushes her hair out of her face. "But it's okay," he amends, "I'll bring her to your party instead."

She half-smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes, and sits up suddenly, dislodging a disgruntled Titus.

"I forgot about you and Vic," she confesses quietly, pushing herself to her feet and flopping onto the windowseat, her forehead pressed against the warm glass. Teddy sits up, confused at her sudden change of mood, and watches as she tenderly lifts Titus up next to her before he can attempt to fly up and knock something off her beside table or smack her in the face with an errant wing.

His heart aches inside him as he stands up, brushing his jeans off absently and crossing the room to press a kiss to her forehead.

"I have to go now," he tells her. She stares up into his brown eyes and nods sadly, her green eyes dull and lifeless. "Your grandma enlisted me to help deliver party invites," he explains, and she sighs mightily and mutters something he doesn't catch. He slides his palm against her cheek for one delicious moment, and she shuts her eyes, and then he turns away and leaves before he can do anything stupid.

* * *

He drops invites through the doors of everyone on the list Molly has given him, apparating from door to door in the warm afternoon air. The scents of city and countryside assault him in equal amounts and all the while his head is spinning with silver-blonde and fire-red hair whirling like hurricanes above two faces who are as different as moonlight and wildfire – one ethereal and beautiful and graceful, and the other grounded and smudged and fierce with a feral grin plastered across it.

He tries to focus because, _right this second_, he needs to make a choice between safety and danger, between security and pure, unadulterated wildness. Lily and Victoire are so different he cannot fathom how he loves them both – there is no question in his mind who he loves more but to give up Victoire would be to risk everything for Lily, and he's not sure he can. (And that's selfish, and he doesn't mean to be, but he just can't help it.)

Vic is the more beautiful and he's known her all his life and she's _safe. _But Lily … her dirty, laughing face is in every one of his happiest memories, smudged with mud or soot or moss or pondweed and her hair is always swirling around her like a glorious, untended wilderness – so very different from Victoire's salon-cut, perfectly straightened locks that hang down in perfectly calculated beauty.

It's the choice between growing up in security with beautiful children and happy, family Christmases and … not knowing. Not knowing whether she'll be angry or happy or whether she'll want him at all and whether her family will try to kill him because, damnitall, she's _ohso_young and he's so _old _now – twenty-seven to her sixteen and it's wrong on _so many levels _… but that doesn't make him love her any the less.

He sighs hugely as he posts the last letter through the Scamander's letterbox, having to actively restrain himself from leaping up through one of the windows and beating the crap out of Lysander because he has Lily at school and he gets to see her every day for so long, and Teddy barely gets any time with her at all any more – and it just _isn't fair._

He returns to his apartment to get dressed and as he struggles into the tuxedo Harry forced him to buy a couple of years ago he wills his hair to turn from the blue that means he's been thinking about sad things to a celebratory red and silver, just for her, but it's nothing if not stubborn and it just _won't_.

Glaring at his reflection, squeezing his eyes shut one more time, a couple of red hairs appear near his fringe. He swears loudly and everything is too much and magic suddenly bursts from him in a raging torrent and the mirror smashes into a million glittering shards.

Still muttering furiously to himself he pulls out his wand and repairs the damage, gives his reflection one last angry scowl and apparates to pick Victoire up.

She's beautiful, her blue dress hugging her slim figure and clinging to her long legs, right the way down to her silver heels. He kisses her cheek and takes her hand.

"I missed you today, Teddy," she says gently as she wraps her arm around his to apparate. He smiles down at her.

"I'm sorry – Lily pitched up so suddenly, I just had to go see her."

Victoire frowns slightly, her perfect face marred by the scowl-lines on her forehead. "It's always about Lily," she says – and manages it almost without a hint of petulance.

"She's very important to me," Teddy tells her, and the conversation is broken as he feels his way into the blackness and pulls them both out on the doorstep of the Potter's house. The party is well underway, people milling around and talking loudly, boys chasing each other from room to room as girls stand in corners clutching champagne and giggling amongst themselves.

Teddy and Victoire get many greetings, and he nods and smiles at them all as he waits for Lily to appear. The minutes stretch out as Victoire drags him over to engage in conversation with some of her old school friends, and he continues his nodding-and-smiling absently as he constantly scans the room for Lily.

He collars Al out of the crowd, and Al grins at him.

"She's coming. Stop being such an old lady."

"I am not an old lady!" Teddy protests, looping his arm around Al's shoulders and pretending to strangle him. "You're just annoyed because young Scorpius won't disentangle himself from our lovely Rose."

Al glares and Teddy turns to Victoire to excuse himself as he drags the younger boy away.

"Everyone gets annoyed when their best friend gets a girlfriend," Teddy says in an understanding tone which earns him a swift punch in the gut from his godbrother.

"God, you're so patronising," Al complains as Teddy doubles over. "And you can't even take a _hit_ like a real man."

"I can too take a – "

He trails off as the collective jaws of every male under thirty around the room hit the floor with an almost audible _thud_, his included, as Lily appears at the top of the stairs. Next to him, Al rolls his eyes and mutters something rude sounding as he straightens his jacket and slips away.

Teddy can't focus on anything apart from Lily. She's _beautiful_. Her silver dress clings to her torso and flares out into a floating skirt and her feet are strapped into killer green heels and her legs are a mile long and her hair has been fought into tamed curls, falling around her face like a curtain of fire, and … she's perfect.

He can't breathe. The sight of her almost has the power to bring him to his knees – he has never seen her looking like this. The silence all through the ground floor of the house suggests that nobody else has, either.

She starts to descend the stairs, smiling with self-consciousness and a hint of pleasure, and behind her Lucy and Dominique and Roxanne Weasley peek around the corner to watch her with smirks of pride and amusement.

She turns her face towards him and gives a little half-smile, almost of apology, and he is pushing his way through the crowd to get to her when Lysander runs up the stairs to meet her, crushing her into a hug as the spell over the rest of the room is broken and there are shouts and whoops and wolf-whistles.

By the time Lily has wormed out of Lysander's all-engulfing hug, Teddy has already left.

He exits the front door and cuts round the side of the house, finding the old rose-trellis they used to climb as children and clambers up it – more awkwardly than before but also more desperately.

He ignores the scratches from the thorns and settles himself down on the roof, determinedly holding back the unmanly tears that threaten to engulf him, and drops his head into his hands.

The glow of the party floats up to him, and he can hear the cries of delight that signal she has moved into a different room – she always was the life and soul of the party. No-one except him ever knew how much she hated parties like this. Titus the dragon flaps out from her open bedroom window below him, a dead mouse dangling from his small jaws, and perches himself next to Teddy.

Teddy pets the dragon as he lies back and watches the stars come out, wishing on every single one as he has been wishing since he was twenty.

_Let her love me._

He doesn't know how long he lies there. Titus swallows his mouse in two mighty gulps and Teddy's hair gradually wanes back to brown – not that he notices. Voices spill out into the garden as teenagers find themselves too confined and Teddy hates himself for being such a sentimental fool that he can't just get downstairs and choose Victoire and have a lot to drink and pretend like Lily doesn't matter.

Then the trellis starts shaking and he shrinks back because he really can't face having to explain himself to anyone. But then he hears a dearly familiar voice swear as a thorn digs into her skin and he leans over the edge of the roof to have his entire vision blocked by Lily. He falls backwards in shock and she laughs as she clambers up next to him, flinging a rucksack between them as she settles herself down.

"You look great," he tells her once he's recovered from the shock. She turns her face downwards, her hair cloaking her expression, but he can see the tips of her ears turning pink with pleasure. "Lysander seemed to think so too."

Instantly she tosses her hair back and glares at him.

"For _God's sake,_ Teddy, what is the _matter _with you?"

He is utterly confused, his hair flashing pink to show her so, and she clenches her fists until the knuckles go white and irritably tosses her hair back.

"What do you mean what's the matter with me?" he asks in bewilderment, and then recoils in amazement as she launches herself at him, almost bowling him right off the roof. Titus squeaks in astonishment and then chokes on a bit of mouse-fur.

"You…are…so…blind!" she shrieks, punctuating each word with a blow to his chest, and he eventually captures her wrists and holds them away from himself, staring at her wild face and pretty hair and distraught eyes.

"Tell me," he commands firmly, and then is treated to yet another piece of shock as she suddenly bursts into tears. He gathers her up into an embrace quickly (it's like second nature to him) and rocks her, murmuring soothingly into her hair as she sobs against his chest.

The party is still going strong beneath them by the time she has cried herself out, and he reaches for her bag to pull out a bottle of firewhiskey and presses it on her.

"Drink," he orders, holding it to her lips. "And tell me what all of this is about."

She takes the bottle and holds it herself, and in between long pulls she gulps confusedly about him being an idiot and Lysander just being a friend and when she's staring in slight surprise at the empty bottle she turns to him and sighs.

"I'm too young to feel this old," she tells him quietly; and a fat, lonely tear bulges over and spills like a diamond from her eye, tracking sadness down her cheek. He reaches out and wipes it away, and in that moment their eyes meet and something sparks in hers that he has waited all his life to see.

Before he can think about it, she's leaning towards him and he's already there, crushing his lips and against hers, his hands tangling in her immaculate hair and pulling her even closer towards him as though he can meld her very bones with his.

She sighs very softly against his mouth, her arms around his neck, as though everything in her life has just fallen perfectly into place.

He eventually pulls back because no matter how right this feels it's still _wrong_.

"Lily, we shouldn't."

She rolls her eyes and drags him into another kiss.

"Stop ruining the moment," she grumbles, her hands knotting in his hair and refusing to let him part from her. Finally she has to break apart for air and her darkened eyes stare into his as he tries to set his brain back into any sort of functioning mode.

"There's eleven years between us," he points out validly, "and your dad and brothers will _kill _me if they find out."

"So they won't," she says firmly, kissing his cheek gently and twining her fingers with his. "I'll keep you secret like Titus and when I've finished school we'll run away to Romania and we'll be married before anyone can tell us off."

He grins and wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her into him so her back is resting comfortably against his chest and they can both watch the stars.

"So how long have you been planning that for, hmm?" he asks in her ear, and feels the shiver that runs all the way through her.

"Since I was ten," she admits absently, her brain momentarily going AWOL as he kisses her neck. "And you fell asleep and your hair went the same colour as my eyes. I just thought about it more since Lucy started obsessing about Lorcan and idealising her perfect wedding dress and stuff."

Teddy laughs, sweeping her hair off the back of her neck so he can get better access to the pale skin there.

"That doesn't fix the age-thing, Lils."

She scrambles around in his lap, all big eyes and flushed cheeks and wild hair until she is facing him.

"I don't," she announces, putting her hands on his shoulders, "give a shit about our age difference."

"But I'm _old_," he tells her regretfully, playing with her fingers, and she rolls her eyes.

"Ted, there were thirteen years between your parents, remember? Besides, they don't care in Romania anyway."

He laughs, but is abruptly cut off by her lips, and he figures she's the one who matters and he'll cross all his other bridges when he comes to them. His fingers trace down the side of her neck and over her shoulder, and as she gasps against his mouth he smirks.

"So, Romania, huh? We're going to go there and get married and own a huge house with a hundred children and a hundred dragons?"

Her fingers fight clumsily with the buttons on his shirt as she grins.

"Prioritise that differently. First finish school – because, let's face it, I think Dad will explode if I don't finish – and then Romania, then getting married. We're already on the road to a hundred dragons and there is no way I am having a hundred kids. Even if it's with you, my darling, blind Lionheart."

He laughs at the return of his nickname from her childhood and pulls her hands away, common sense suddenly returning and announcing its presence to the world.

"I like being yours," he says gladly, resting his forehead against hers. "So long as I have you I'll be happy with anything else."

"God," she complains even as she angles to kiss him again. "We're such saps."

"I like sappy," he murmurs against her lips, fleeting thoughts of Victoire and Harry and Al and James banished from his thoughts almost as quickly as they arrive because he is determined to have tonight at least before everything goes up in flames and his life becomes a battleground.

"A secret for now?" he asks, and she nods.

"Don't think for a second it's because I don't love you," she reassures him quickly. "But it will hurt so many people – I don't want to do that, not yet."

"Next July," he confirms, brushing his thumb across her cheek. "We have that long to ensure that we do not become infuriating, lovey-dovey idiots."

She grins and leans her head comfortably against his shoulder, and he absolutely cannot help feeling like everything in his life has been leading right up to this one perfect moment in time.

"Oh God, I'm doing it already," he announces in horror, and she laughs and mock-slaps him.

"I forgive you," she says, and he kisses her again just as someone starts yelling her name in the garden below and she wriggles out of his embrace.

"See you later, blindman," she grins, hoisting the bag of alcohol over her shoulder. "Don't go falling off any roofs now."

"Ha, you're so funny," he replies sarcastically, but blows her a kiss anyway, then gives her five minutes before clambering back down to ground level and slipping away because he is sure he won't be able to control himself and the beam that wants to spread all over his face in a roomful of people who know him so well.

And he can't help but love the soppy feeling that everything has fallen exactly into place.

* * *

**A/N: **Please don't favourite without reviewing, thank you.


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